Top prosecutor says mother would not cooperate against husband

When 3-year-old Jared Nicholas Patton died in December 2009 of what doctors said were the results of an inflicted brain injury when he was only 3 weeks old, James City County's top prosecutor hoped to bring a murder charge against the boy's father.

But Williamsburg-James City Commonwealth's Attorney Nate Green said Tuesday that he could not move forward on a homicide case against David Curtis Patton in early 2010 because Jared's mother would not cooperate against her then-imprisoned husband.

Nicole Patton testified as a crucial prosecution witness against David Curtis Patton at a 2007 trial on child abuse and malicious wounding charges — a trial that sent Patton away for about five years. But she later said she no longer believed in the prosecution's case.

"She had a change of heart," Green said Tuesday. "We met with the mother and found out that she was no longer going to cooperate nor testify the same way that she had in the past ... She did not believe Mr. Patton was the cause" of Jared's injuries.

Kathy and Steve Stowe — Nicole's mother and stepfather who took care of their grandson for his three years of life — said Nicole corresponded extensively with David Patton while he was in prison, and she came away with the belief that an obscure medical condition had caused Jared's death.

"They said they were going to do everything they could to prosecute him for manslaughter," Steve Stowe, 53, said of prosecutors. "Then we got a call that Nicole was not willing to testify," and that she apparently believed that Jared "had some crazy genetic disorder and that he wasn't shaken."

The Stowes said they've been estranged from their daughter ever since.

Now, David Curtis Patton — who was released from prison in November 2011 for the abuse charges involving his son — is charged with felony child abuse in a separate case in Hampton.

He's accused of causing a brain injury to his 3-month-old daughter on May 22. According to an arrest warrant, he's charged with inflicting "acute and chronic subdural hematomas on the brain" on the newborn — essentially, severe bruising on the brain.

Patton, 32, is now being held without bond and faces a preliminary hearing on July 2 in Hampton Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court. According to court documents, Patton told Hampton police his dog knocked over the girl while she was in her bouncer, though hospital officials told police that story is inconsistent with the baby's injury.

After at least two weeks in the hospital, the baby girl has been released from Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in Norfolk, Hampton Police spokesman Jason Price said Tuesday. She's now in the care of Child Protective Services.

The extent of those injuries, and her prognosis in recovering, is not clear from court documents, and Price said he could not elaborate.

David Patton has declined an interview request made through the Hampton Sheriff's Office. His attorney, Assistant Hampton Public Defender Nanita Cornish, has also declined to comment.

Nicole Patton could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, and no one answered the door at her Hampton home Tuesday afternoon. A friend called the Daily Press later in the day on her behalf and said she would have no comment on the case.

The Stowes say that while David Patton moved in with Nicole after he got out of prison, he later moved out. Nicole Patton is not the mother of the newborn baby girl involved in the more recent Hampton case.

At the 2007 trial in James City County regarding the abuse on Jared, David Patton was found guilty of felony child abuse but was acquitted of aggravated malicious wounding. He was sentenced to seven years, with five to serve and two suspended.

At the time of that trial, Stowe said, Jared had a life expectancy of about five years.

Green said Tuesday that Nicole Patton's testimony was "an integral part of the first conviction," and that, after Jared died, he needed her testimony to go forward.

He said that he had hoped to charge Patton with "felony murder." Felony murder is a form of second-degree murder for accidental deaths that occur in the course of another felony — such as child abuse.

The cause of Jared's death, as spelled out in a December 2009 state medical examiner's report, is listed as being "inflicted brain injury," and the primary cause was an "external" one — "shaken and/or blunt trauma to head."

But Green said that without a confession or testimony from the victim, he needed Nicole to testify to key factual elements of the case. "We needed her to establish who had access to the child when the injuries occurred and who would have been in control of and supervising the child," Green said.